Solving the 5.1, DTS issues with the Playbar

Sonos have confirmed officially on their website support page that they are NOT planning to implement DTS support! What a shame!!

Sonos have confirmed officially on their website support page that they are NOT planning to implement DTS support! What a shame!!

Indeed a shame Sonos!

Now that we have offical word from sonos that DTS will not be supported. I want to ask can PS3 be used as a media player to play movies stored on NAS drive? If yes, what all formats does it support?

Perhaps this was an issue of wireless not being able to keep up with the bitrates required for DTS. Similarly HD FLAC files using wireless. My system struggles with normal FLAC files and I have a clear Wireless Channel?

Ok, now it has been confirmed that Sonos are not supporting DTS and have "failed" to deliver on their normal easy minimalist setup, :rolleyes: I guess we need get an optical switch and new Blu-Ray player in order to get the Playbar to work in 5.1

Can anyone in the UK recommend which model Samsung Blu-Ray player we should go for, just cheap and cheerful no need for whistles and bells? Also any recommendation for an optical switch to take 3 inputs?

Any suggestions gratefully received!

I bought a playbar and sub knowing my TV wouldn't pass anything but OTA audio via optical out. No big deal I thought, because I have a receiver that I will offload all audio switching through and simply pass optical out to the playbar that way, not even so much as giving it a thought that in 2013 something wouldn't support DTS. That was 3 months ago and I should have returned it day one, but didn't thinking Sonos would certainly add support sooner or later.

Now I'm screwed, because the receiver, as is normal, assumes it has speakers hooked up to it, instead of passing via optical out. So it won't re-encode, meaning when it receives a DTS, DTS MA, DD+, or DD TrueHD it decodes it internally but won't convert or down-sample to DD and output over optical. That means my Roku, mac mini, etc won't pass audio to the playbar unless I have the respective component set to stereo or PCM, which only passes over optical as 2 channels. So what I'm looking for (and I think most everyone here would like) is a switcher or component that will take everything you send it, decode it, and re-encode it to DD 5.1. Does anyone know of something that will do that? Most the switcher's I've seen won't re-encode. I solved my blu-ray problem by picking up one of the Samsung players that will re-encode, but that doesn't solve other components.

Anyone have experience or ideas for solutions with different file options?
I tend to use USB sticks, Plex media server, etc to send stuff to my TV and watch mostly movies.
I am trying to see if there is something I can plug the TOSLINK into and have a converted format come out the other end.

I currently do not own any Sonos gear. I was really thinking about it... I just got a new TV, it hangs on the wall and has a thin footprint. I am trying to find a way to bring my 5.1 system back. I have B&W speakers and an AMP - but they are huge an I don't have the room for them. I was looking at the SONOS because you can wall mount the playbar and use the speakers in other areas of your house... plus its fairly easy and wireless.

Just trying to see if these other options for playing stuff will work in some other fashion... biggest problem DTS audio only.

Thanks
Chad

it works for me when u draw all my content through WDTV.

Try see if u under audio settings on W/E ur using to decide which audioformats your TV/Box/DVD/BR will output.

My WDTV can output to certain formats on optical. Like i can chose if the optical output can send AAC, DTS, etc., or all formats to the hooked up unit. In this case only output the soundformat that works for playbar.

Price is like 200 Euro. Includes mediaplyaer that can play anything: Netflix, ISO, MKV, AVI, MP4, and everything else. It has 1TB internal storage, it also works as a NAS. My wife uses it to show pictures on the tv. And before we had wimp, we played all our music on sonos from the music library on the WDTV........ 200 Euro......

it works for me when u draw all my content through WDTV.

Try see if u under audio settings on W/E ur using to decide which audioformats your TV/Box/DVD/BR will output.

My WDTV can output to certain formats on optical. Like i can chose if the optical output can send AAC, DTS, etc., or all formats to the hooked up unit. In this case only output the soundformat that works for playbar.

Price is like 200 Euro. Includes mediaplyaer that can play anything: Netflix, ISO, MKV, AVI, MP4, and everything else. It has 1TB internal storage, it also works as a NAS. My wife uses it to show pictures on the tv. And before we had wimp, we played all our music on sonos from the music library on the WDTV........ 200 Euro......

Can you please advise what are the audio settings you're using on your WDTV to get 5.1 through DTS audio? I have WDTV Live running latest firmware and I dont get 5.1 while playing DTS audio. I have checked DTS under optical audio settings. I do however get 5.1 when i play Dolby digital audio through WDTV.
Thanks

Wow, what a long topic about this problem...

In the first post a little hardware device is mentioned, but the link does'nt work anymore.

Does anybody have a name on a little converter/switch etc.. So my DTS sound can be played?